Hamilton defends rage at team in Turkey
Lewis Hamilton has defended his radio rage in the Turkish Grand Prix and sought to draw a line under Mercedes’ controversial decision to pit him late in the race.
During a series of heated exchanges, the seven-time world champion screamed at race engineer Peter Bonnington: ‘F*** man, why did you give up that space?’ as a likely third place turned into a finish of fifth.
It meant Hamilton’s one-point championship advantage evaporated and now Max Verstappen, who came second, leads by six points.
Hamilton had wanted to stay out throughout on his original intermediates tyres on a damp track – a tactic only employed by Alpine’s Esteban Ocon. To which Hamilton said on Sunday: ‘If Ocon did it, then I could do it, for sure..’ But after a night’s sleep Hamilton applied balm to the delicate situation, saying: ‘I’ve seen some of the press this morning, which has made a bit too much of the incident in yesterday’s race.
‘It isn’t true to say I am furious with the team. We work hard to build the best strategy possible but as the race progresses you have to make split-second decisions. There are so many factors constantly changing.
‘Yesterday we took the risk to stay out hoping it would dry; it didn’t. I wanted to risk going to the end, but it was my call to stay out (eight laps earlier, when the idea was raised by the team) and it didn’t work. In the end, we did pit and it was the safest thing to do.’ Of his well-vented frustration, Hamilton said: ‘Don’t ever expect me to be all polite and calm on the radio when I’m racing. We are all passionate and in the heat of the moment that passion can come out, as it does for all drivers.
My heart and spirit are out there on the track. It’s the fire in me that has got me this far, but any angst in quickly forgotten.’ Sky’s leading pundit Martin Brundle, who raced in 158 grands prix, said: ‘It was a mistake on Lewis’s part (not to come in when the idea of pitting was originally put to him eight laps earlier).
‘All Mercedes had to do was mimic Red Bull. But Lewis put his team off-balance and it was a bit of a no-man’s land stop in the end, but they had to stop.’
